Dirt work to prepare for construction of a new affordable apartment complex for seniors will get underway on Monday in a master-designed neighborhood in northeast Colorado Springs that started being developed in 2008.

Nearly 17 years later, the area around the intersection of Marksheffel and Woodmen roads is intentionally filled with single-family homes, attached homes, multifamily housing, retail shops and commercial buildings.

The 50-unit Sunrise at Shiloh Mesa will complement the existing subdivision, said Lee Patke, executive director of Greccio Housing.

“We’re able to not impact or change the original design but bring it to fruition,” he said.

The community housing development organization owns or operates 29 properties with 844 affordable housing units in El Paso and Teller counties. This is the group’s second senior project; the first, the Atrium at Austin Bluffs, opened in 2021.

It’s also the city’s second affordable housing development that’s located on church property. The Village at Solid Rock opened last year in southeast Colorado Springs, as a project of Solid Rock Christian Center.

For Sunrise at Shiloh Mesa, the Center for Strategic Ministry, an affiliate of Woodmen Valley Chapel, donated the roughly 1-acre site to the investment group that last year received 9% federal and $700,000 in state low-income housing tax credits from the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority.

It was the third time Greccio Housing had applied for tax credits for the $18 million project, Patke said, starting in 2022. 

“That’s a function of the high demand for tax credits and deep competition,” he said. “Applications usually outnumber funding by three or four to one.”

The groups involved have created a symbiotic relationship, said Randy Scott, a Center for Strategic Ministry board member.

The organization exists to identify needs in the community and worked with Woodmen Valley Chapel to determine how the church can assist. Affordable senior housing rose to the top of the list several years ago, Scott said, and his organization asked Greccio if it would also come on board.

Land to the west of Woodmen Valley Chapel’s Woodmen Heights campus, which opened in 2004, was destined to be a parking lot before the affordable housing initiative took hold, Scott said.

“We believe in reaching outside the walls of our church by identifying challenges in our community and seeing what we can do,” he said. “We demonstrated that when the city was going to close the Westside Community Center, and we ran it for almost 12 years. We want to love on our community in any way we can.”

Questions and concerns from nearby neighbors led Greccio to change its building and design proposal, Patke said. For example, the four-story apartment building will stairstep from three to four levels on the north end so not to obstruct views of Pikes Peak. And tweaks were made so residents won’t overlook neighbors’ backyards. 

In keeping with Greccio’s mission to serve the people most at-risk of housing instability, Sunrise at Shiloh Mesa will have 12 units for households earning 30% of the area median income, 18 units for 40% and 20 for 50%. Area median income for 2025 in El Paso County is $112,500, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

“This project will serve some of the lowest, most vulnerable senior households of any project that gets funded,” Patke said. “It’s people with limited ability to increase their income, which we feel strongly we are here to serve.”

The need for such apartments is “incredibly high,” he said. The organization’s Atrium at Austin Bluffs has a waiting list of more than 400 seniors needing the lowest levels of rent payment.

Once the complex opens next summer, volunteers from Woodmen Valley Chapel will provide transportation for tenants, social interaction, food pantry assistance and other support services.

“Over the last few years, not specific to this project but to Colorado Springs and our nonprofits and our businesses, we’ve increased our expertise and ability to do this in sort of a homegrown way, with the majority of the participants being local,” Patke said. “That’s a great asset and something we can be proud of; 10 to 15 years ago that was not the case.”

A public groundbreaking ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. on July 17 at the site, at the intersection of Shiloh Mesa Drive Mulberry Wood drives.